


here i've come to hijack you

by sixtywattgloom



Category: Bloomington (2010)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-08 00:44:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4284186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixtywattgloom/pseuds/sixtywattgloom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>high school au, in which catherine is forced into having a tutor for the only class she isn't destroying. <i>The C++ is every bit the nightmare she expects. Jackie isn’t.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	here i've come to hijack you

**Author's Note:**

> hi i'm a mess and accidentally wrote 4.5k words for a thing no one really cares about???? love me??? also: **warning** for mentions of (canonical) parental death and dealing with grief.

This entire situation is fucking ridiculous. 

She’s been in the library hundreds of times, at least, but her legs are suddenly twenty times too long for the chair, and there’s something metal digging into her back, and there isn’t nearly enough air conditioning to keep her body under control, which is _ludicrous_ , because she’s never been particularly susceptible to heat.

And maybe her legs have always been too long for the chair—she hit 5’10 in eighth grade, for fuck’s sake—and maybe the chairs have always looked more like they belonged in a kindergarten classroom—probably from the ‘60’s, given the varying shades of neon—and maybe the A/C’s been broken for a few months now. But none of those things mean she’s ever wanted to be here less.

 _Give it a chance,_ her school counselor told her, because ever since the plane crash virtual strangers keep trying to make a point of “steering her down the right path.” Which is fucking absurd. Of course she’s going down the right path—she has an above-4.0 GPA, she’s enrolled entirely in AP classes, and _Crime and Punishment_ ’s been her favorite piece of literature since she was twelve. She’s not exactly an at-risk student. Maybe if they spent more time with _those,_ they’d have fewer drop-outs by senior year.

Catherine glances at the clock. Five more minutes and she’s out of here. There’s lacrosse practice this evening, and after that a paper to type up about _Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_ , and then her econ notes to peruse in preparation for tomorrow’s exam. Nevermind the fact that five minutes is exactly when the girl’s supposed to be here—frankly, anyone who thinks she has an extra minute to bother with being _tutored_ for a class everyone calls a joke can go fuck themselves.

“Hi,” says a slightly tentative voice from beside her. Catherine looks up with a sigh, raises a brow, glances at the clock. Four o’ clock. Dead on. Shit. 

She looks every bit like the sophomore she is; her hair’s tied back into a ponytail and her backpack’s about the size of her entire body and she offers a half-smile. “You’re—Catherine, right?”

“Yes.”

“Jackie.” Catherine meets with her with several beats of silence.

“Fantastic,” she finally says, every bit as insincere as she feels. “Let’s get this over with.”

*

Their first tutoring session goes something like this: too many hours of a too-blank computer screen glaring up at her, maddeningly.

“You read about this,” Jackie says, not for the first time. “You _know_ how syntax and semantics work outside of programming, so you just—”

“Well _here_ it doesn’t make any sense,” Catherine grits out, her smile heavy with condescension, like Jackie’s the one whose brain is lagging behind. “And I have practice in less than an hour, so I think we’ll have to cut this off for the day.”

“Catherine,” Jackie says, though she doesn’t stop her as she gathers her things into her bag. “Why programming? I mean, you could’ve taken a different elective. Especially your senior year.”

“Because it fit my schedule,” she says, brusquely, sliding her bag over her shoulder. She doesn’t say: _because my dad loved computers almost as much as he loved his family._ She doesn’t say: _because sometimes I’d find him asleep on his desk at 7 in the morning and bring him coffee—two creams, one sugar—and he’d tell me he didn’t know what he’d do without me._ She doesn’t say: _computers look less and less the same, but maybe the pieces that make them up aren’t that different._

“Goodbye, Jackie,” she says.

“See you tomorrow, Catherine,” she hears as she steps through the doorway, almost like a challenge.

*

Catherine comes back. 

They conquered the lacrosse game, and there’s no doubt she aced her econ exam, and her Lit teacher didn’t even wait until the end of the period to tell her that her thesis alone was already one of the best he’d ever read.

And Jackie comes back, too, with a smile that brightens the moment she catches Catherine’s eye. “Hey,” she says, sounding every bit like _You’re here_.

“Yeah. Hi,” Catherine says.

“Are you gonna listen to anything I say this time?” Jackie raises her brows, gives her a sidelong glance.

“I don’t know,” Catherine answers, “are you gonna have anything interesting to say this time?”

Jackie breathes out a half-laugh, turns to Catherine for several seconds, like she’s contemplating it. “Hm,” she says. And then, “Not even a little bit.”

The C++ is every bit the nightmare she expects. Jackie isn’t.

*

“Catherine,” Jackie interrupts, unexpectedly; Catherine’s in the middle of actually trying to wrap her head around a paragraph about branch statements, a miracle Jackie’s rarely inclined to ruin.

Still, she raises her head. “Hm?”

“Why isn’t Mr. Newberry giving you an A?”

Catherine furrows her brows, folds her arms across her chest, wonders if Jackie’s decided she just wants to fuck with her. Like it’s not enough to see her stumble through it every day, like she needs to hear Catherine admit how shitty she is aloud. “You’ve seen me,” she manages, flatly. “I wouldn’t call it an area of expertise.”

“No, no,” Jackie says, hastily. “Not—I didn’t mean _you_. I meant Newberry. He’s giving everyone in my period an A. The kid in the back who spends the entire class throwing pencils at the ceiling is getting an A. Maybe it’s not your calling, but I know you’re turning things in.”

Catherine leans back in her chair. “He spent our entire second class going on this…tangential rant about the philosophy of _Hamlet_. Let me tell you, there’s a reason he’s not an English teacher.”

Jackie shakes her head, exasperated. Catherine doesn’t miss the smile she tries to hide. “You told him that, didn’t you?”

“He was _completely_ off-base,” Catherine says, and this time Jackie just laughs.

*

 _You should come to the game tonight,_ Catherine types into her phone.

 _Are there any good players?_ she receives, not two minutes later. _I heard the last match was a close call. Sounds like you guys got lucky._

 _We’ve been national champions three years running._ And then, _And they’ve got a really hot center._

_How could I say no to that?_

*

“I think the other team actually threw you the ball a couple times,” Jackie says. “I thought they were gonna start scoring goals against themselves.”

They’re lying in her bed, facing each other, though it’s too dark to make out much more than outlines. The last time Catherine checked her phone, it read 3:20, but she has a feeling they’ve probably rolled through four since. “They’re weak-willed,” Catherine says. “Can’t be helped.” 

“Maybe if you stopped torturing them during intermission,” Jackie says, grinning.

“Hmm,” Catherine says, considering. “Bleeding out doesn’t count as torture, does it?”

“Bleeding out? No, totally benign,” Jackie affirms, and Catherine reaches across what little distance exists between them to trace her fingers through Jackie’s hair. 

“I suppose I can work with that, then.” Catherine’s sigh is exaggeratedly weighty, and Jackie smiles.

It’s only her phone, vibrating too-loud on the bedside table, that causes her to start. “What the fuck,” she mumbles, squinting at the screen. And then, into the phone: “What the fuck, Matt?”

He’s so drunk that it’d be a wonder she could even understand him if he didn’t always want the same things.

“He’s an idiot,” she says, after she hangs up, “but I don’t want to find him dead somewhere.”

“Call me if you need anything,” Jackie says, nodding, but there’s something about the heaviness of the room, something about the look in Jackie’s eyes, that almost makes Catherine change her mind.

*

With Catherine’s lit paper fast approaching, and Jackie’s precalc midterm on the horizon, they agree to spend most of the week skipping the programming talk altogether in favor of a quiet study environment.

But Tuesday begins anything but quietly.

“At least with Shakespeare, you know what you’re getting yourself into,” Jackie says, before the door even has the chance to slam behind her. Catherine has a copy of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ in one hand and a highlighter in the other, and the suddenness almost makes her jump. Almost.

“Like, it tells you right on the cover—comedy, tragedy. In the end, everybody dies or everybody gets a happy ending. You don’t have to worry about, like—wading through all the in between bullshit, you know, because…because you get what you came for.” She tosses her backpack on the chair beside Catherine’s. “And when there is in between at least it’s—like, _witty_ and _Shakespeare_ and you don’t _feel_ like you’re suffocating in all the bullshit—”

Were it another circumstance, Catherine might comment on Jackie drawing a comparison between Shakespeare and her own life. But it’s this circumstance, and Jackie’s cheeks are flushed and her hands are shaking and eyes are rimmed with red. “Jackie,” she says. Nothing. “ _Jackie_. What’s going on?”

Jackie seems quite suddenly to remember where she is; she stills. “It’s stupid—I can see through my mom’s bullshit, but she’s been saying she’d come to the play for months, and—”

“You’re in a play?” Catherine tilts her head. “I didn’t know you were in a play.”

“It’s nothing big,” Jackie says, shifting her weight back and forth, only meeting Catherine’s eyes after several long moments, when she realizes it can’t be avoided. “It’s still a month away, anyway.”

“Well, what’s the play?”

“You wouldn’t know it,” she answers, too quickly.

“Are you doubting my _knowledge base_?” Catherine asks, indignant. “I do have two years on you, you know.” When there’s no response, she adds, “Try me.”

“It’s not that, it’s—it’s mine.”

“You wrote a play?” Catherine asks, reaching from her chair to grab Jackie’s hand, to pull her closer. “You wrote a play and you’re _in it_?”

“It’s not exactly Broadway-ready,” she says, though there’s a half-smile she can’t quite smother.

“I’m coming.”

“That’s…really not what I meant.”

“Do you not want me there?” Catherine asks, raising a brow.

“No! I mean, yes, of course you can come, if you want.”

“Are you kidding?” she asks. “Where else would I want to go?”

Jackie must be leaning down at the same time Catherine’s leaning up, because they meet somewhere in the middle—arms wrapped around each other, half-sitting and half-standing, like their own version of an in between.

“Besides, if you’re already comparing your life to Shakespeare, I can’t wait to see how this turns out,” she adds, and Jackie shoves her and tells her she’s an asshole.

 *

“Did you break up with Matt?” Jackie asks, chewing on her bottom lip like it’s a question much more complicated than any of the actual assignment spread out between them.

“Is that what he’s telling people?”

“No,” Jackie says, “he’s telling people he broke up with you, but everybody knows that’s a joke.”

“We were never _together_ ,” she says with a laugh. “Does he really strike you as boyfriend material?”

Jackie narrows her eyes, skeptical and searching, and Catherine feels suddenly examined in a way she hasn’t since she was fifteen, only most of them had letters after their names. “You seemed pretty together.”

“Did I ever tell you he was my boyfriend?” Catherine asks, sounding a little bit like she’s addressing a five year old. “That’s what I thought.”

“Alright,” Jackie says, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms across her chest, “so what’s Catherine Stark boyfriend material?” Catherine very nearly bites out a response—until she realizes, somewhere along the way, that Jackie’s eyes have fallen to her lips. Catherine catches her gaze pointedly when they flicker back up, doesn’t miss the way her cheeks tinge a little pink. 

 _This_ Catherine can do. This is safe. “Well,” she says, smile widening as she leans across the center of the table, settles her chin into her hand, bites her lip, “I’ll be sure to let you know when I figure it out.” 

“Right,” Jackie says. “Okay.” Though she returns to the book, Catherine doesn’t miss the outline of a smile she buries behind her hand, or the way she keeps touching the ends of her bangs. 

She wonders what it’d be like to watch her fall apart beneath her.

*

“Catherine, what…” starts Jackie, as the door to the computer lab clicks shut behind her.

Catherine’s already at the computers, which almost never happens, and she’s farther than the login screen, which definitely never happens. “Wait,” Catherine says. And then, “There.”

Triumphantly, she pushes her chair back and invites Jackie closer.

“You did the assignment,” Jackie says, leaning closer. “Did you—you finished the assignment?”

“Surprise,” Catherine says, smiling a little smugly, more than a little delighted by the way Jackie’s entire face lights up, by the way her smile reaches the very corners of her eyes. 

“I told you!” Jackie says, leaning down to press a delighted kiss to Catherine’s cheek. “I _told_ you.”

“I guess you did.”

 *

It’s Jackie’s third lacrosse party, but it’s the first time Catherine’s ever seen her drunk.

Usually she doesn’t drink much at all, but tonight she drinks the two shots she’s offered almost before Catherine can blink. Coughs, splutters, laughs. 

“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” Catherine asks, sincere, and Jackie gives her a thumbs up.

Three drinks later and she’s wrapping her arms around Catherine’s waist, giggling into her ear, all the way up on her tiptoes. She makes up a new story about each person who enters the room—whether Catherine knows them or not. But she keeps forgetting who she’s seen, ends up imagining about three identities for everyone. “I forgot to mention I brought you to a party of spies,” Catherine tells her.

“Or you’re on a team of superheroes,” Jackie stage-whispers. “And that’s why the other teams are too scared to look at you. Every game is actually a warzone.”

“I guess there’s no denying it anymore,” Catherine says, sighing around a smile.

“You should _definitely_ look into some spandex,” Jackie tells her, and Catherine pulls back, laughing, to meet her gaze, eyebrow arched.

“ _Should_ I?” she asks, tilting her head. A beat, and then, “Is that a request?”

There’s no time for an answer; even if there had been, the sudden influx of screaming would have drowned it out. Like they do after ever win, the team gathers into the living room, prepares for a round of semi-coherent victory speeches.

Three hours later, Catherine’s holding Jackie’s hair back on the floor of her uncle’s bathroom, promising she’ll make it to the other side. 

Jackie falls asleep in Catherine’s lap, hands trembling, mumbling something about Mark. Catherine falls asleep with a hand tangled in Jackie’s hair, head pressed against the wall, wondering if this makes her feel more or less safe. 

* 

Catherine doesn’t make it past the second act of Jackie’s play.

Broadway-ready it may not be, but it’s remarkable and moving—and also about loss, and about loneliness, and about the patterns of grief, and she would give anything to unwrite it. When the lights dim after intermission there’s an empty seat where Catherine used to be.

She hates it. She hates this about herself, thought she’d squashed it better than this. She hates that she spends the second half of the play in a dirty, high school bathroom stall, surrounded by initials drawn in hearts, and hearts scribbled out to be replaced by “bitch,” littered among philosophical quotes like “i had sex with your mom here.” 

She hates these fucking people, and she hates this fucking school, and she hates that even as she digs her nails into her palms she can’t seem to stem the tears she hasn’t cried since she was fifteen fucking years old. 

She didn’t cry during the funeral. She didn’t cry the day after the funeral, or the day after that, or the day after that, or the day after that.

But the next day was Sunday, which was always breakfast with her mom.

It’s stupid, that she forgets. It’s stupid that she could _forget_ , when she can recite the prologue to _Canterbury Tales_ off the top of her head. (Her dad was always a fan, had at least four worn copies tucked away in different pockets of the house.)

It’s stupid that she pulls out two knives and two forks and two plates. It’s stupid that she remembers at the exact moment she turns on the stove, burns herself with it.

It’s stupid that she falls apart on the kitchen floor, the pan clattering beside her, shaking so hard she wonders if she’ll ever stop.

It’s stupid that she’s seventeen years old and it’s real again.

Catherine turns off her phone, gets in her car, and drives.

*

 _I’ll be out of town this week,_ she texts Jackie, clinically. Like she didn’t disappear without warning. There are a handful of missed calls from her, a series of baffled and then progressively more worried—and punctuated—texts. She skims them, closes them, doesn’t delete them. _I’ll see you later._

She doesn’t. Catherine spends one week, then two, then three as far from the library as she can manage without actually leaving campus. They win another lacrosse match, and Catherine doesn’t look into the crowd once.

*

The thing is—Catherine’s world is full of people who need her.

The team would fall apart without her; she contributes more than half the (coherent) discussion to more than half her classes; her GPA is exactly the kind the administration appreciates in its averaging process.

The thing is—she doesn’t invite people over for sleepovers at her uncle’s, doesn’t offer anyone pints of ice cream to share while they cry about assholes who dumped them, doesn’t like when anyone else paints her nails.

Those aren’t the things people need her for.

The thing is—no matter the poor bastard who miserably fails to fill her shoes next year, no matter how far the team falls short of a fifth national title, everyone’s world will spin another day. Try as she might, Catherine will not steal their gravity.

*

“Catherine,” says a voice from behind her, and Catherine nearly sends her lacrosse stick through her car window, “what the hell is going on with you?”

Practice has only just ended; it’s nearly dark enough to be dusk, and her car is one of only a handful left in the lot. “Jesus, Jackie,” she says, “what do you want?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Jackie says, “maybe to know why you haven’t shown up to any of our sessions for three weeks, or why you won’t return any of my calls, or—hey, maybe why you won’t look at me.”

“I’ve been busy,” Catherine says, making a point of meeting her eyes. “Our season’s almost over, and college acceptances are right around the corner. I have obligations.”

“No shit,” Jackie retorts. “So do I. Most people pick up the phone and offer some kind of excuse before they vanish off the face of the earth.”

“Well, here’s your explanation. I’m busy. Enjoy…teaching struggling ninth graders how to add, or whatever you do with your spare time,” she says. And then, “What do you think this is, some kind of bad romcom break-up? You know we’ve never even made out, right?”

Catherine doesn’t once look back. Her knuckles are white on the steering wheel. Her throat burns.

It might be that gravity is more fickle than she thinks. 

*

She’s off-step, out of balance, can’t seem to score even against their weakest goalkeeper in practice. They tell her to take some time off, tell her they all have their off days. And then nothing.

She stops by the library because there isn’t anywhere else to go.

She slides into a familiar seat, feels the familiar dig of metal into her back. She hopes that Jackie’s stopped coming, that she has better things to do, that no one’s scheduled time in the empty space Catherine left behind.

Her stomach churns with nausea.

(She hopes that Jackie comes. She hopes that her name’s been written in pen. She hopes that there’s no whiteout handy.)

“Catherine?”

The clock chimes four p.m. Four p.m. exactly. Catherine almost laughs.

“Jackie,” she says. She stands, takes the few steps necessary to erase the space between them. “Hi.” It’s comforting, how Jackie’s eyes still drop to her lips, like a split second instinct. It doesn’t last.

Catherine is proud, then disgusted, then both.  “What’re you doing here?” Jackie asks, crossing her chest with her arms.

“I don’t know,” she says, honestly, and when she bites her lip this time it isn’t an affect. “Hoping you wouldn’t come.” Something catches in her throat. “Hoping you would come,” she adds, even more honestly. Her smile and the roll of her eyes are vaguely self-deprecating. Safe enough.

“Need help with your programming?” Jackie asks, a little derisively. But she brushes a hand through her bangs the way she does when she’s trying to gather herself, and Catherine smiles, just a little.

“Actually,” she says, “I was wondering if you wanted to come back to my place.”

“What?” she says. “First you won’t even look at me and now you want me to – what, let you take me somewhere and have your way with me? Some grand gesture, Catherine.”

“No,” Catherine says, and Jackie flushes. But Catherine continues before Jackie can say anything and before she can talk herself out of being an idiot. “No, my place. Not my uncle’s.” She pulls the keys out of her pocket, holds them in her hand like something burning, something sacred.

“It’s my birthday,” she says, softly. “My parents’ house – it’s mine. It’s part of the inheritance.”

“Oh,” Jackie says. And then, “Yes. I want to.”

She reaches for Jackie’s hand, entwines their fingers. Doesn’t realize her hands are trembling until Jackie’s thumb brushes across the back and they still.

“Are you sure?” Catherine asks.

Jackie nods. “Are _you_?”

 _No,_ she thinks. _Yes._

Jackie drives them home.

* 

Catherine doesn’t say, _I couldn’t look you in the eyes because all I could see was that fucking bathroom stall._ She doesn’t say, _Every time I looked at you, I watched myself fall apart._ She doesn’t say, _Every time I looked at you, I wanted to tell you everything._ She doesn’t say, _Every time I looked at you, I wanted you to care._

She says, “This was my dad’s office.” She leads her to the desk, watches Jackie open the first drawer. Most of his things are still there—a coffee-rimmed coaster, an old keyboard, a notepad scrawled with code she still doesn’t understand.

She says, “This was my mom’s favorite room.” There are still shoes under the side table—one of her mom’s favorite pairs, dark red heels, that she looked at more often than wore—and folders in the corner where old case files used to be.

When the world feels too close, when her chest tightens and the hallways close in, Jackie orders them Chinese.

Afterwards, Catherine curls up on the couch, watches Jackie open boxes she forgot existed. Watches her check every so often to make sure Catherine doesn’t mind, to make sure she isn’t crossing too many boundaries. Watches her trace her fingers over a bright green sweater Catherine’s dad knitted her when she was five, blows the dust out of a flowery, antique cup that her mother always despised but couldn’t bear to sell. 

“Happy birthday,” Jackie says, surprising her with a candle packed into a box of fried rice.

She says, “It is.” Means it.

*

“So,” Catherine says, when they meet in the library. “Maybe we should get back to this—letting me have your way with you idea.” 

Jackie tilts her head, eyebrows raised. “What about it?” 

“How open are you feeling to it?” Catherine asks, grinning. “On a scale from—‘at least give me another few weeks to get over you being an asshole first’ to ‘there’s a quiet spot in the back corner of the library and I think it’s time to put it to good use.’” 

“Get over you being an asshole? Isn’t that all the time?” Her smile is crooked, teasing. “An impatient one, too, _obviously_.”

“Obviously,” Catherine confirms, leaning the rest of the way across the table, sliding her thumb along the outline of Jackie’s jaw. “And you have a pretty distracting mouth.”

“I’m surprised you ever get anything done,” Jackie whispers, their lips nearly brushing.

When they kiss, Catherine has this absurd, fourteen-year-old thought that maybe gravity never stood a chance.

*

Catherine’s still pulling on her graduation robes in the passenger seat when Jackie backs the car out of the driveway.

“What do you think?” she asks, catching Jackie’s sidelong glance. “Chic green or puke green?” Rather than a safe black, the administration apparently decided to throw caution to the wind this year.

“Why not both?” Jackie says, grinning.  “I hear puke chic’s _all the rage_ this season.” But her smile fades quickly enough for Catherine to notice, and she arches a brow, searching.

“I’m gonna miss you,” she says, finally.

“I’m gonna be here for another three months, you know,” Catherine tells her, turning on her side to face her. She leans a little closer, slides a hand up along Jackie’s thigh. “Besides, I have a _lot_ of ideas about saying goodbye.” 

“Catherine,” she manages, somewhere between exasperated and protesting and into it. “Is this why you let me drive your car today?” 

“Hmm,” she murmurs, smiling a little before pressing warm, open-mouthed kisses down her neck. “You were thoughtful enough to wear a dress.” She brushes light fingertips along her thighs, traces indistinct patterns as she sucks intently along her collarbone. 

She’s inside her by the next red light, and Jackie’s coming—quiet and breathless—just before their final turn. 

(The spot below her collarbone will be darkening well before the ceremony comes to a close.)

“You actually have a death wish,” Jackie says, still a little shaky, as they pull into school.

Catherine just smiles, delighted, turns to climb out of the car. “I expect to hear you screaming for me.”

“Catherine,” Jackie says, grabbing her wrist and pulling her back toward her. Catherine gives her an obvious, exaggerated once-over, but Jackie hardly seems to notice. “What kind of goodbye?”

“If you’re asking whether or not I’ll be mad about you hooking up with other people while I’m gone, the answer is hell yes.” It’s a stupid, impractical decision. It’s the only one she knows how to make. 

“Okay,” Jackie says. And then, before Catherine can leave, “Me too.”

“I know,” Catherine teases. “You’ve got a real jealous streak.”

This time Jackie nearly shoves her out the car door.

*

When Jackie wakes, it will be the first morning in three months she’s woken up to an empty bed.

Almost empty. There will be a note on the pillow where Catherine’s head used to be.

_Jackie,_

_Take care of it for me._

_Yours,  
_ _Catherine_

On the bedside table will be a set of keys. Maybe like a promise. 


End file.
